Customer Reviews

Cheech & Chong's Nice Dreams

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Cheech and Chong look like they had a lot of fun filming "Nice Dreams" with their comedic friends. I've seen it at least ten times and I still find something I missed during previous viewings. I always laugh when I see the redheaded Chicken Man, or Cheech scooting around a padded cell in a straight jacket asking for someone to relieve an itch, and especially Michael Winslow's Jimi Hendrix routine. Don't expect a real plot and you won't be disappointed.

Why this C&C film is always rated as the "2nd or 3rd best C&C movie" by most reviewing it is beyond me! It is a must-own if you are a fan of C&C (the big "3" any ways), and could possibly be their finest.

The "Hamburger Man," "Big Sticks ice cream treats," "Save the Whales," Stacey Keach, Paul Reubens, and more pot than you can shake a stick at make this one an empitamizing Cheech and Chong adventure, for anyone with a good sense of humor.

I'm giving this 4 stars because I love Cheech & Chong. Nice Dreams, in my opinion, is the third best C&C movie. Up In Smoke('78) being the best followed by Next Movie('80.) "Nice Dreams" is enjoyable (I can't believe it's been 20 years since I saw it in the theatre as a teenager.) The "Save The Whales" song is great. I've always loved Tommy Chong's guitar riffs and I love it when they do these little songs in the middle of scenes. After an enjoyable start, the movie slows down a bit but picks up for a funny second half. The movie gives off a very *cool* feeling with it's "pot growing" scenes.

My beef here is with Columbia Tri-Star (come to think of it, they should change their name to *COLUMBIAN Tri-Star* for the Cheech & Chong flicks) Seriously though, my problem is that there are NO FEATURES to speak of on this DVD. I WAS pleased to see that there was a picture disc and choice of format(including anamorphic widescreen) but NOT ONE REAL FEATURE. They even dupe you on the back of the DVD by stating "bonus trailers"; implying that there are extra trailers *ALONG WITH* the NICE DREAMS trailer. NO DICE... THERE IS NO "NICE DREAMS" trailer (only two others.) What the hell is the big deal for these movie companies to give us a few features for these older movies?!? To me, features are much more important on an older movie (for nostalgia sake at least!) than on some new movie that's been promoted into the ground anyway!

Here's an idea for "NICE DREAMS" or "CHRISTINE" or "THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH" or any of the other older movies that have been given the shaft, features wise:

1. Theatrical Trailer (ALWAYS start with this; having no trailer is like having no thermos in a lunch box.)

2. nostalgic features like TV commercials, old interviews, poster art etc. (for me, this kinda stuff is VERY important.)

3. Deleted Scenes (bring 'em on!...good or bad.)

4. a nice featurette (which includes original *cast members* *looking back* on the film, not *producers boring us to tears* with location and technical troubles.

5. Finally, audio comm. is always a bonus.

I know what you're saying, "NICE DREAMS" isn't worth all that. Well, I say "If you're GOING to release something on DVD, FILL UP THE DAMNED SPACE!" Make it FUN to BUY! Let us feel like we spent our money WISELY. DVD IS MEANT FOR THIS. **CELEBRATE the film, don't BARE-BONE it like it was a reissued VIDEO TAPE!

Paramount did a decent job with "Up In Smoke." I can only *hope* that Universal does a good jod with "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie"....but I'm not holding my breath.

Nice Dreams comes in 2nd behind Up In Smoke, in my opinion. The innocent, goofy demeanor of Cheech and Chong are better portrayed in Nice Dreams than in Next Movie. One complaint I have, is they left Sgt. Stedanko out of the main plot. I think it added alot more humor to the story when he was an uptight, though incompetent, police Sargeant in hot pursuit of Cheech and Chong along with his numbskull officers. Though brain-dead things like Chong cashing a check for the Hamburger Dude with NON NEGOTIABLE stamped across the front made it worthwhile.

Nice Dreams might be either C & C's second or third best film. They have a movie that might seem weird in the first viewing, but it grows on you after a few viewings, each one getting funnier. And it's not just the funny sequences involving a pot garden, a lizard sergeant or mental patient animals. It's also the little things, like chats by Cheech and Chong about petty stuff that actually might make sense when you go with the flow (like the discussion on Hippie retirement homes).

But that's just an observation on the small things. Overall, Nice Dreams is a very hilarious film that has all the things you could want in a C & C movie, and while it doesn't quite match up to the brilliance of Up in Smoke, it does many cool things; one of which is bringing Pee-Wee Herman in the mix as the uproarious Hamburger dude. Love the save the whales song.

Hard to believe this came out during the Reagan administration. Here, nevertheless, is one of the last gasps of the counterculture, and if it is not as tightly plotted (if that is the right word) as the auteurs' Up In Smoke, neither is it as ploddingly episodic as Next Movie and Still Smokin', their other films of note. (Of Things Are Tough All Over and The Corsican Brothers, the less said the better.) There actually is something resembling a story here: the boys amass a fortune selling marijuana and, in the final act's surprise twist, they lose it. Along their picaresque way they encounter unlikely scenarios and people--people including, but not limited to, Paul Reubens, Sandra Bernhard and Dr. Timothy Leary.

Not all of the gags hit their target, at least to viewers who are not themselves on drugs, but the beauty of unsuccessful drug jokes is that they do not so much bomb as waft away. Director Chong is no Bergman, but he does present us with sights I do not recall seeing anywhere else: a nude Cheech clings desperately to a glass elevator's exterior; a panicked Cheech backstrokes desperately atop a subterreanean pot farm disguised as a swimming pool; an extraordinarily mellow Stacy Keach slowly turns into a lizard.

Plot elements and set-pieces aside, what stays with this reviewer are images of the comedians wandering serenely through a splendid cannabis plantation. They stroll amid the greenery and gently argue about something or other, as quiet country-rock murmurs on the soundtrack. If Cheech and Chong's prior movies were about the sleaziness of the drug scene, this one is about the sylvan beauty of marijuana farms--even if the farms are concealed somewhere in suburban Southern California. There was plenty to worry about in 1981, of course, but this film reminds us that some people were less worried than others.

Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams is one of the best in the series. Here the far out duo have finally found the scam beyond their wildest dreams, selling "specially mixed" ice cream. Great sences, some of the funniest things about this one is the small talk between the two like the Hippie Retirement home and Voto Land. Really funny things are their underground pot garden and the whole idea of selling dope in a ice cream truck.

Hilarious moments, save the whales song, making lunch, "do you like yours medium rare?", "I can smell cops a mile away man, they smell like coffee and donuts.", "Come on get after them man they want a big stick!" Recomended for any C&C fan!

Cheech & Chong's Nice Dreams DVD:


Although Not as Funny as Up in Smoke In my Opinion. or Still Smokin'. the Movie is still very funny. Stacy Keach returns, also You have Paul "Pee Wee" Herman" Ruebens, In this movie. "I am Not Sorry" I am Sorry!!" The scenes in the Restaurant are Hilarious. If your a Cheech and Chong fan, you need to see it.

I recently went through Cheech and Chong's catalog, specifically films directed by Chong himself. As I was watching Next Movie, this film, and Still Smokin', I noticed that all these films have a strange, surreal, laid back, leisurely style. Part of me wants to say that Tommy Chong was just stoned out of his mind when he directed these films (which he probably was), but I can't help but notice that the films (especially Next Movie and this one) have a flow unique to themselves. The pacing seems deliberate, there are many long takes in the film (including one when Cheech, Chong, and a dealer are at the dealer's house, and Cheech is burning tortillas while Chong is getting stoned), and the film seems to be deliberately made that way. It doesn't feel like a happy accident.

Nice Dreams is also a very funny film. It is also downright surreal at times with the dealer's "garden" and Stacy Keach slowly turning into a lizard while smoking the best grass anywhere. Cheech and Chong's "whales" song is pretty good, too. Even though pot use in movies is more common now, Cheech and Chong were the only ones doing it back in their day. Cheech and Chong just did it, they were never self conscious about getting stoned all day and making money off of it.

I am going to go out on a limb and say Chong has a directorial style all his own. I'd like to see him make another film. He hasn't directed one since Far Out Man, which was made sometime in the 1990's. Nice Dreams is a very good film. It's not as hilarious as Up in Smoke or Next Movie, but it's still very good.

The movie is typical Cheech & Chong stoner humor. They go from selling drugs to trying to get their money back they have taken, but I got the impression that Nice Dreams would mean they where gonna be doing a bunch of sketches in their dreams as they laid passed out stoned, but it turned out to be the name of their Ice Cream truck they use to deliver the dope in.

The humor is ok, it's not the best of the C&C series, but it's OK in my book. Tho, if -Columbian-Tri-Hards are going to release DVD's with nothing else on them, not even trailers, then why not put 2 or 3 movies on one disc and make it a double/triple feature? This one would have been good with the other Columbian release "Things Are Tough All Over". And Universal should put "Get Out of my room" on the "Next Movie" DVD as a bonus feature.

These movie company's just ignore the Cheech & Chong franchise, and that's a shame, they give no attention to these, yet pack a useless movie like Legally Blond into a 2 disc special edition, not to mention it's the first edition released.. then when it flops, make a sequel.

Man, I hope C&C get back together to make a new Cheech & Chong movie, we need more comedy's like these that you actually wanna go and see.